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An Interfaith Christmas Tree

By Lisa Belkin December 21, 2010 4:16 pmDecember 21, 2010 4:16 pm

Robert Wright for The New York Times

Hayley Krischer is Jewish. There is a Christmas tree at her house this year, for the first time in her life. As she explains in a guest post today, it is partly for her son, whose dad is Christian, but also for her daughter, whose dad isn’t, and mostly because this is the sort of thing that a guilt-ridden, over-compensating, divorced parent does this time of year.

AN INTERFAITH DIVORCE: WHAT DO WE DO ABOUT CHRISTMAS?
By Hayley Krischer

My ex-husband and I divided the holidays easily in our divorce: our son, Jake, would celebrate Hanukkah with me and Christmas with his father. A few traditions carried over into my house—hanging stockings and Santa—and as I explained to Jake, Santa came to everyone’s house. “When you get back from your Dad’s, Santa will have filled up your stocking,” I said. So we left Santa cookies and milk. And then like a good Jew, while Jake was celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ at his father’s, I went to the movies.

I remarried a Jewish man, Andy, who didn’t seem to mind the stockings. I even monogrammed a stocking for our newborn daughter, Elke, and despite some snarky comments about the spirit of the season, we merrily rolled along in our interfaith blended family. Until one day, as Jake circled holiday requests from the Back to Basics Toys catalog, he asked, “Mommy, do you celebrate Christmas?”

“I celebrate whatever holiday you celebrate,” I said. He was my son—wasn’t this the truth? Yet, it quickly became one those parenting moments where you long for a do-over. If I celebrated Christmas, wouldn’t I have a tree? Wouldn’t there be a wreath on the door? Santa dessert plates? Soy nog? At the very least, as per our custody arrangement, wouldn’t I have Jake every-other-year on Dec. 25?

I couldn’t ask to split Christmas with my ex. It was the only holiday that mattered to him. This was part of the brutal reality of divorce; your children don’t get to spend every holiday with you. As his mother, of course, I wanted to make everything better, but there was no way out of this one.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas, honey,” I said. Harangued with guilt, I backtracked. I praised our stocking tradition. I professed the amazingness of Hanukkah. The dreidel game! None of it replaced his want for a Christmas tree with presents underneath. At Mommy’s house.

That night, as a neurotic Jewish mother in crisis, I told Andy: “We need to get a Christmas tree.”

Andy was brought up in a more conservative Jewish family than mine. “Jews don’t celebrate Christmas,“ he said. This was coming from a man who adored my son. They bonded over Star Wars and fart jokes early on.

Still, I was defensive. “There’s a little boy in our house who does celebrate Christmas,” I said. “And soon enough, that little boy’s sister is going to want to celebrate Christmas also.”

We stared at Elke in her bouncy seat. She was far from demanding anything more than a bottle.

My husband, the Grinch, marched upstairs in a cloud of “bah, humbugs.”

If I learned anything about marriage the first time around, convincing your partner of your position doesn’t work. Everyone is entitled to their own feelings. Just because you think it should be so doesn’t mean your spouse has to agree.

Of course, I saw Andy’s point. We were Jewish. We were married under a chuppah. By a rabbi. Signed a katubah. Even Jake is Jewish—his father and I decided long before our our (failed) marriage that our child would attend Hebrew school. Jake has my grandfather’s Jewish name. Zelig. He had a bris. (Granted, the bris was on Christmas Day, but this is what happens when you have a child born December 17. Call it coincidence.) Maybe a no-tree policy was something I’d have to accept, and in turn, help Jake accept. Christmas is not a holiday you celebrate at Mommy’s. Christmas is a holiday your father celebrates.

Another Jewish mother might be a better woman than I; but telling my wide-eyed kid there was no Christmas felt like a horrible betrayal, akin to telling him there’s no tooth fairy.

So I made a case for Christmas. Take the religion out of it, I told Andy. For most of our non-Jewish friends, Christmas was as unconnected to Jesus as love was to Valentine’s Day. Christmas trees were pagan traditions, not religious. I’d string the tree with wintery ornaments. No Santa chachkas whatsoever. I even mentioned Andy’s grandmother who, according to folklore, used to put up her own Christmas tree.

“I don’t think that’s true,” he said. “I don’t remember a tree.”

But Andy’s older sister confirmed it. “My parents asked my grandmother to stop doing the tree when I was about 6,” she said. Too confusing for four Jewish kids from Long Island.

In a last ditch effort, I did what any mother who wants to bring a nondenominational Christmas tree into her Jewish home does. I opened the Pottery Barn catalog. Jam-packed between snowy settings and banisters draped in holly berry stood a tree decked out with musical instruments, snowflakes, peace signs and ornaments that read “give hope,” “give love” and, better, “give peace.”

I ripped out the photo of the tree. It was all glimmery and sparkly like a disco queen making a political statement. Andy was a hippie; he’d love it.

“See, look,” I said. “We can have a peace tree. Horns. Bells. A Buddha instead of a star on top,” I said. “We can do it our own way. It doesn’t even have to be Christmas.”

“A peace tree,” he said, “I like it.”

George Bailey had Clarence. I had the Pottery Barn catalog.

The next day, I told Jake about the tree. He whipped out a blank piece of paper and furiously scribbled down his list for Santa. “Mom, how do you spell Yoda’s Dagobah Hut?”

Andy sat down at the table next to Jake. “We can call it Festivus,” he said.

And that was fine with me. Though it didn’t matter what we called it. In fact, we didn’t need to call it anything at all. We just needed to plug in the lights.

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We're all living the family dynamic, as parents, as children, as siblings, uncles and aunts. At Motherlode, lead writer and editor KJ Dell’Antonia invites contributors and commenters to explore how our families affect our lives, and how the news affects our families—and all families. Join us to talk about education, child care, mealtime, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more